I get the impression that Carlos is actually excited about that Rick Rubin album and wants to put it out as soon as reasonably possible. He'd been talking about Power of Peace being a "late summer" release (which it technically still is but it feels like he wanted this to be a "holiday" album and late summer meant late August or even early September).

But right after those Rubin sessions he suddenly lit a fire under getting Power of Peace out - just a two month lead-time from the official announcement to the release date AND the date was even moved up a week after the announcement - that doesn't happen very often. It's like he's trying to create as much space as possible before he drops that followup album that he's actually excited about. In the meantime, he's saying all the right things about this album - that a joint tour is possible and he'd really like to do another album with the Isleys - but he said all that about the reunion album as well.

(Not that I would mind another reunion-lineup album, as long as someone like Rick Rubin was around to play "bad guy" when it comes to Gregg's lyrics).